INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
ROBOTICS FOR AUTISM Autism is a complex, lifelong developmental condition that typically appears during early childhood and can impact a person’s social skills, communication and relationships. Various technologies, such as robots, VR/AR and eye tracking are being investigated for the diagnosis and treatment of autism. This article presents a summary of recent research on the use of robots for autism. Zheng Li, Caiwei Chen and Pradeep Ray, University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute
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utism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), hereafter referred to as Autism (which includes Asperger’s Disorder and Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified [PDD-NOS]), is a complex, lifelong developmental condition that typically appears during early childhood and can impact a person’s social skills, communication, relationships, and self-regulation. The autism experience is different for different ASD affected people. It is defined by a certain set of behaviours and is often referred to as a “spectrum condition” that affects people differently and to varying degrees. While there is currently no known single cause of Autism, early diagnosis helps a person receive resources that can support the choices and opportunities needed to live fully.1 The prevalence of ASD has been increasing steadily over the past two decades. Luckily, with the advance of information technology, human society can tackle ASD much more maturely than in the past. Today, information technologies such as robotic technologies offer some promises in the treatment of ASD patients as discussed in this article. This article presents a classification criteria for robotic technologies for ASD management based on the criteria, the real-world applications of these robotic technologies are discussed from the aspects of joint-attention, imitation, turn-taking and emotion recognition. 1 Autism Society, see https://autismsociety.org/the-autismexperience/, accessed Jan 2022
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A SI A N H O S P I T A L & H EA LT HCA R E M A N AGE M E N T
IS S UE - 57, 2022
